Northwest’s so-called ‘green’ law firms working for Big Coal

Top Northwest law firms have, for years, hired out their strategic and lobbying talents to grease big-ticket development projects, from proposed Puget Sound oil ports to trans-continental pipelines to construction of an enormous nuclear power plant in the bucolic Skagit Valley.

The drive to build big, coal-export terminals, on the Columbia River at Longview and Cherry Point north of Bellingham, is getting help from some of the region’s big-name barristers, according to a new report by the Sightline Institute, a “green” research outfit that measures the Northwest’s progress — and regress — in environmental matters.

Big Coal “is coming to the Northwest in a big way,” writes Sightline, and is “hiring a small army of lawyers to smooth the path from unwelcome interloper to permanent fixture.”

It notes that law firms on coal companies’ payroll are also outfits who boast their commitment to “green” energy and sustainable development, and buy tables at breakfast fundraisers for major (and safe) Northwest conservation causes.

“Several well-known Northwest law firms, including two that cheerfully market themselves as green leaders, have thrown in their lot with the coal industry. They aim to help coal companies avoid a comprehensive public review of plans to export as much as 140 million tons of coal annually from the region,” Sightline reports.

“Yet, it’s probably fair to say that many of these law firms care deeply about their reputations and would rather not have their work for the coal industry broadcast too widely.”

Coal train in Australia: 18 of these trains, each a mile to mile-and-a-half long, would travel along the Seattle waterfront -- and waterfronts of other Northwest Washington cities -- if a coal export port is developed at Cherry Point north of Bellingham. (Getty Images)

The firms cited include:

– K & L Gates, a multinational law firm famous for partners’ good works — partner Jim Ellis masterminded cleanup of Lake Washington and creation of the Puget Sound Greenway — and a Washington, D.C., lobbying operation expert in transportation policy and deeply connected to the Washington and Oregon congressional delegations.

Sightline says lawyers with the firm have argued for a limited environmental review of proposed coal ports rather than an assessment of cumulative impacts, and “dogged” the permitting process for the proposed Gateway Pacific terminal at Cherry Point.

“Beyond its Seattle office, K & L Gates is a big supporter of the coal industry,” says Sightline. It alleges that the firm worked for coal giant Peabody “to water down important federal climate legislation” and has worked for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway in support of Gateway Pacific.

– Gordon Thomas Honeywell, a politically connected Seattle-Tacoma law firm, was first in the headlines nearly 30 years ago when it represented utilities trying to get out of contracts to pay shares of the Washington Public Power Supply System’s defunct Nos. 4 & 5 nuclear plants. The case was won before the Washington State Supreme Court.

– Stoel Rives, a Portland-Seattle law firm, has an attorney listed in the international “Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers,” and its attorneys sponsor events with the Washington Clean Energy Alliance, but Sightline is not impressed.

It notes that the firm is working for Millennium Bulk Terminals, backed by Ambre Energy and Arch Coal, which wants to convert an old aluminum smelter at Longview into a terminal that would ship as much as 44 million tons of coal to China.

Supporters have argued, however, that the World War II-vintage aluminum smelter — it long displayed a picture of President Franklin D. Roosevelt waving at workers — is a “brownfield” site, a severely contaminated industry facility that would be cleaned up as part of its transition to an export port.

– Schwabe Williamson and Wyatt, a Northwest firm with deep Oregon roots, features a sustainability essay on its website, concluding “Schwabe’s professionals are increasingly mindful of the impact that our ecological footprint (carbon and otherwise) has on the local, regional and global environment.”

Sightline points out, however, that firm lawyers are working with Ambre Energy on its proposed Morrow Pacific project, farthest along of the coal export proposals. Embre would ship up to 8.8 million tons of coal each year from Montana and Wyoming by train to the Port of Morrow, in Boardman, Ore., from which it would be shipped down the Columbia River by barge to the Port of St. Helens.

The coal would then be put on ocean-going ships bound for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. (Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt was recently ranked by Oregon Business magazine as one of the Best 100 Green Companies to Work for in Oregon.)

The coal port battle is shaping up as a siege, one likely to involve prolonged lawyering over such issues as the scope of impact studies.

Supporters of the Gateway Pacific project — with support from statewide business lobbies – believe that an environmental review should concentrate on the immediate area in northern Whatcom County where the terminal would be located.

But the city of Seattle has embarked on transportation and economic studies to map out impacts of having 18 mile- to mile-and-a-half-long coal trains a day traversing the Emerald City’s waterfront.

State legislators, led by Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, have petitioned the Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate potential disruptions to the environment, transportation and other economic activity from the Washington-Idaho border to the port site just south of the U.S.-Canadian border.

The region’s green groups also want climate change included, arguing that low-cost coal from Montana and Wyoming would allow China to keep aging, polluting power plants in operation. An estimated 47 percent of the coal burned across the Earth each year is burned in China.